Originally Posted by
Turbine1
If the arbitrator buys the company line that Atlas is no better than 21 Air or Mesa…then Atlas will remain the worst by far, into the 2030’s.
It’ll be interesting to see which airline they buy in 5 years so they can start the arbitration 6 year “process” for the third contract in a row. It won’t be Kalitta, their contract is too good comparatively. Atlas will if it’s possible, find an airline with even lower pay and garbage work rules than ours and snap them up with their pocket change as they did with Southern. All to keep our pay and QOL suppressed at the bottom, with no vote on the matter.
For awhile it was looking like a CBA by the Fall. Not anymore. The company now says if the CBA implementation schedule isn’t agreed to by the union, the company will take that to arbitration too. They’ll surely find another delay tactic after arbitration part deux runs its course. Contract 2023 anyone? Got to give time for inflation to do its work so it’s an overall cut in crew costs from the 2011 CBA.
There are two gambles in your statement which still need to pay off in order for the rest to come true:
1) The company has spent an estimated $1 billion fighting the union in a BET that the arbitrator will pay off. As you point out with your conditional "...IF...", this is still an open question.
2) The other gamble is, will the arbitrator preserve the merger language in the next contract as it was done in the last contract? If NOT, then the "merger/arbitration" game may come to an end.
I know where I'd put my money, but honestly, the wheel of fortune hasn't stopped spinning yet.